Society Facts

Almost one in five asylum seekers is being made destitute because the authorities have decided that they failed to make their application for asylum as soon as "practicably reasonable" on arrival in Britain.

Asylum figures for the third quarter of 2003 (at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/asylumq303.pdf) reveal that while Tony Blair's target of halving monthly asylum applications has been met, 2,810 asylum cases (19%) were notified that they were ineligible to apply to the government's National Asylum Support Service (Nass) under section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 for any financial assistance or help to pay accommodation costs.

This compares with 1,830 cases refused support in the previous quarter and 1,894 in the first three months of 2003 after the act was introduced. Before the act came into force, just 3% of applications to Nass were found to be invalid. Overall, applications for Nass support have more than halved over the past year.